Safe With You

I am anticipating lights, heat. You.
Waiting for descent and your smile.

I  have half terrified myself,

studying secrets, wondering
if I, too, should yield.

I am plotting my next session

with the therapist I don't have.
Revealing fleeting, flitting,

swollen, spinning drifts that

sound like someone else.
Should I mention that

I've been having trouble spelling?

I think of pre-nostalgia
so, of course, you.

But I am safe with you.

Somehow.  And I don't want
to dig for bones.  I just want you.

In Flagrante Delicto

The house
   hums, always loudly now, and I give thanks silently
for this marvel.
We hang with care, the lights, the star, the garland,
        and
        all miraculous offerings.
The house, this year, wrought
                                  with new tradition,
                                                      delicate as your
inflections,
wrapped in wonderment-
the timing,
the season-matching merriment.
We have found decor,
long shelved need, and your desire sparkles
like the brilliance we've been waiting for and I think
                                                       of the antecedent-
                                                            the crisis
before creation- fleeing and fullness-
weary women for centuries after
just looking for a home.
This year, no different,
providence pended, hankering
for mounted wisdom,
      men to guide.
Your pauses
         pound
           out
innuendos,
               splattering a fresco of fiery
hues onto my well
                           laid plans and even so I can't help but feel
                                    indebted.
I have tasted,
           too, the
                      end.
So, this year, I will add deeper
                                               rouges, flame to fire, even as
                                                                            I trim
                                                                              the green.
I will host unspoken words.
I will sip from insight's cup, warm as cider,
because just on the border of close, you have
found me with what
                  is yours,
knife in hand, poised to carve,
but I am
                                   not the truth
server
with intent
              to trounce.
Instead, it is the inevitable
forcing its way out, laborious,
   sticky
and my heart starves, too,
                    though you cannot hear its weak, synonymous
                                                        rhythm through
                                                              the reserve.
See, I have climbed the same stairs to dreaded attic,
             brought back
adornments, holy,
                traveled,
                too, the same dusty road in plight of night, in need
                  of room.
Issued by sovereign call....
depending now
on nothing.

You can have what I cannot give.

The Sunday Whirl

Lectulus

In creating, the only hard thing's to begin...
                                                         -James Russell Lowell


You are Adam
        and
I am Eve,
pre-fall
         and so
vigil held in
pre-nostalgia
waned with wick of wariness,
lessening into daybreak's risk,
and light rising, I signed
             the words, I love you,
then spoke them plain
        saying all I never thought
              I would.
Because lathered in your
before and after
kisses,
        somehow
                        what once gushed
syrupy
seems now likely.

So, here I am, in the wiggle room
  of luck,
believing in the blessing,
            given
           not
by choice or virtue,
but won
by fight,
and the danger of practicality,
looming just above-
        ever easing.

I offer to wisdom all previous
grieving,
repossess
    the wonder.
There is suffering
            still to steer,
              I'm sure,
but together
we
row rapids
  of redemption,
        each wave of what
once was
            and
reaching
            graveyard of the end
                             of what
                                  was once
before,
we'll dig up vision's
bones,
breathe bloom
into the stilted mouths of
                         mocking cynics.
We will
           laugh at sighs and stretching
                         silence,
because now,
voice,
legitimized,
and artificial phrases,
yes, sublimest art.
More is more, and I will serve you
happily
       in return for heart,
because you never gave up
                    chase,
                        and catching me,
you held me long in hidden gap,
wove, like craft, a frame of healing,
waited out derangement
            of my feverish cries
                                              and I
survived.

So, now I give my life to you,
                        my love,
undo
softly, gently,
    false covering of figs,
      abandon fear.
I spill more sumptuous
                           than the fruit
                                              I
tempted with, and ask forgiveness.

Press hard your hips to mine,
                  your lips to mine,
and know the way
by memorizing feel of features.
Know me in the dark and light,
                in the cycles
of our hours,
our habits of formation.
Hear me
in our modern.
In
my notes
            slipped into sack lunch
vows I've never uttered.
Keep them close
as you do my body
in between the sheets
         in early morning
segue.
Taste like lasting taffy,
the sweetness of my thoughts,
        watch my fingers spell
                         in lieu of
                             lines
the pretty gathering of sonnets
                  and regard attempts,
however lowly, to call you home.
Eat with me newly granted
knowledge,
and when spent from toil,
return
   to Eden's bed.

The Sunday Whirl

                                         
           

Winter Journey

I came in through the snow, my footsteps quickly fading.
I saw, on my way, that old tree leaning, dusted,
paling, and our initials carved were covered only
barely.
I brushed aside the white so you'd remember.
I listened for the solo note of frost finch floating
                            so I could follow.
                                 I found the door with message
                                              thawing in the dawn
but made it out.  I waited among the elms
         and all of nival ilk.  I waited long
         and worried you were lost.
I should not have left.  I circled the vast
                      and colorless expanse, returned
                      and knocked to no response.  I, then,
with one finger, traced words into the sleek freeze
        on window and left again,
                                      the cold gnathic aching blowing
                                                        as if predicting death.
I could feel your absence.  I let my heart beat widowed,
just to know it.  I turned against
       the wind,
                its blast all that broke the terrifying muteness
                                             of the land.
I needed joy.
I needed you.
I stopped and stood alone
in this somber
        silence
and watched the eerie
powder snow gently take out canvas.
I worried you'd forgotten where we were to meet,
   where I met you last, four seasons past.
I planned calendar year around
                                            return.
I memorized your face, this place, but not your meaning.
I held the heat and lied.  I met you in mess of romance.
I observed your wounds with my hands.  I placed yours
                           where mine were matching.
I came back in winter,
came in pitch black night in bleak of chill,
needing fire.
I will kiss you alive when I find you.
I have arrived.

       

Punctuates

The rain first falls wishful,
                       wanting more.
More than the sidewalk,
more than the gutter, more than the elementary
school blacktop
empty now of lanky players.

It falls wistful
        like
      a grandmother breathing,
                       yearning
    for marshes; dry, praying
                               prairies;
forgotten ghost town
forests.

Lacking these,
              the rain jockeys
for attention, pounds
              the storm
              takes the city siege,
                     sends drops down
in droves,
     driving citizens toward safety.
     
People rush awkwardly for cover;
            hurrying
though careful of the slippery pavement,
and the brimming puddles.

The murky morning,
warning enough for fools,
clouds
constructing mood,
          though most paid no mind, ignored
the smattering, rolling roars,
distant but close enough to hear.

Now the rain grows into rhythm,
                                               heckling
with her timing and her beat
                       all
unlucky souls huddled under quagmire
and awnings.
A few brave pedestrians
with their umbrellas and their purpose
march on through the magic
         happening
between the cracks
      where the soil silkens.

The people
befuddled by the weather
though it has run for eons on such
cyclical
                   systems.
The people with their gear, lamenting
frizzing hair
like moisture is akin to electric shock.
The writers
            isolating in their safe house
coffee shops, penning sulky
           stories,
adding for affect a necessary storm,
like their minds
are individual nations unsurpassed
and can only thrive at selective span
and far away from others.
The people feigning casualty
walking slow like they don't care.
The stuffy, puffy business folk
                  peeking out
                            bespattered
windowpanes,
huffing, checking watches,
                                  wondering
if they can still make lunches.
And just across the downtown street
                    of the high rise buildings
                                          sit the sleazy bars
where patrons come rain or shine.
Some weathering the deluge
just to get their whisky, rum, their gin.
The rain
       respects this - at least they thirst.
Their counterparts across the way only know
                                    of hunger
and not a thing of pain.

The rain ceases razor pelt, falls short
        and punctuates.

The Sunday Whirl

The Gift

You strode in,
        self-possessed,
        surprised
me daily with your persistence,
                                     sowing
                                     seeds of patience
                                                        in this bucolic land
where I had
set up camp,
              my nomadic
heart meaning only
       to repose a while.

You, like you
were born here, knew
the paths -the way
through grassy dells,
                 and wooded vale.

You took
my hand
        and led me
when the
sun would set, navigating
shadows nimbly with map of grace.

My fear kept me trailing ever behind,
                                     groaning over distance,
                                     grumbling with
each step
while you
        simply hummed happy
and pushed
on,
half pulling me alongside
rilling streams and up the rocky
                                             crags.

When did I yield?
Realize this was now my home?
Maybe,
when, at last, one midnight journey, I buckled, fell
                  sobbing to my knees, fatigued.
Gently,
         you took my
face
in hands so
                    strong,
kept your steady gaze for
what seemed years,
until the tears
                    stopped and dried.
                               Dumbfounded by
                                                          this
                                                                sheer kindness, I rested
                                                                  halfway between that pasture where
                                                                             you had found me and the hilltop destination where
                                                                                                         each morning pink would break and you would
spread your arms out,
  palms held open,
proudly show me valley below,
                                     as if this moment was brand new.
                                                                   We would
then descend,
aurora's colored clouds
              completely lost on
                  me and, too, the height, the why
of this recurrent
                               tour,
the
space beneath
                   the peak and the return by stars.
But that
night you touched my face,
and
  I slept,
  I had visions of yours
                   and then knew
I had seen it before.
         So, as the moon hung low
              and shining, I woke revived,
              anticipating
               arrival and
with purpose,
tried
    to match your stride.

This time,
atop the hill, the lights mixing, creating prismatic display of dale,
                I understood.

We held
       hands
and looked up at the
great sun rising,
flooding the sky in fire,
and in that instant,
I knew
                                                                                                        what I had missed each time before.
The grain
stood out
with dignity,
waving,
so far down, glowing now golden
                                  where before, it had seemed drab
                                                              and merely brown,
the meadow,
      malachite and now flowering with promise,
the small rivers, coursed with force.

I realized it was all yours
                           and you were giving it to
me.
The evening excursions the necessary means by which to grant this
                                                                                                    gift,
for now I saw the others.
            Waiting.
                  I,
now,
     would guide.

The Sunday Whirl

                                   
                                                               

Carries On

By, Jove, quips God, What
                                   went wrong
here?
He
slogs through our muddy mess,
scratches His head.
Shrugs.
Wonders,
              Why did I promise not to
flood this place again? 
Makes
                                     mental note to be careful with those
                                                                  covenants.
Dust, he mutters, now shakes His head.  Snorts.
It would
be funny if it
wasn't so damn sad.  He kneels,
pounds His fist into the dirt,
and the
earth quakes.
Humans
hardly tremble.
Calming, He sifts
           through
           the
sand beneath Him, soiling His
fingers with our remains,
pondering
what might have
    happened had
    he
added
an eighth day, a
  ninth day, a
       tenth.
But He's always had a thing for
                                          sevens.
He calls down the
                                                                angels
to console Him.
They hover round with
                                             reassuring whisperings,
                                              reminders gently spoken
                                                                             of
the why.
They praise creation.  He smiles wistfully
                            as they list reasons of why,
still,
                                         it
                                         is
good.

God is swayed,
         stands invisible upon orbiting sphere, begins
          to move in rhythmic dance with heavenly host.
                                                                                   Slowly,
at first,
then
     faster,
       all ethereal bodies tapping
     feet and waving wings and
             arms.
The
                        trees catch on and join in,
limbs
leaping,
leaves swinging, and then
                             the waters too, rippling and
                                                             laughing in cascades and currents, dispelling
myth of disinterested deity
              distant
               in the sky.
We name the action, 'storm,'
                                   sleep even sounder with no inkling of the minds of mountains
                                                                                                 bending,
the
rocks reacting
                  in refrain.
We are a pragmatic people to our core,
                             ignorant of the vibes of glory just outside
                                           our door.
We,
                                                             who lag so far behind the simpler
                                                                                     beings,
the crux of all His hope,
and somehow blissfully
         unaware.
               When morning mist
                                     gently wakes, we deck ourselves in plumes
                                                                               of
practical endeavors,
busy ourselves with our own
importance.
Pass out blame, take all
credit,
employ herculean efforts to
                 run the show
 and live in secret desperation until our deaths.
And God
stands on the precipice of
 the impulse of
annihilation,
thinking,
Maybe this
               is mercy,
then catches sight
of just one ragamuffin mite,
watches
                                              with interest his silly antics .
        Somehow, this creature softens
                          the father's heart of
God,
and so He caves.
                    He gathers the angels for a huddle,
sighs,
and when He
                                                                             speaks,
the wind whirls, emitting secrets infinite and
                                                                                                the world carries on.

The Sunday Whirl